Additional budget? Breaking out of prison is preferable: Cisco survey

  • Cisco notes results provides a 'reality check' to Malaysian IT professionals
  • 27% of respondents equated visibility of IT department into company's business initiatives to 'a foggy day in London'

Additional budget? Breaking out of prison is preferable: Cisco surveyIN a recently released survey by Cisco, 18% of IT leaders said they would rather "break out of prison or train for a triathlon" than ask for additional budget.
 
That was the response when asked to describe their attitudes toward asking business decision-makers for budget toward network infrastructure upgrades, highlighting the ongoing challenges IT faces in aligning itself to business objectives.
 
The Cisco Global IT Impact Survey’s research findings also revealed that applications and user expectations are becoming more complex: Almost three-fourths of IT participants (71%) reported that IT is deploying more applications today than one year ago.
 
While IT and the network are increasingly recognised as enabling the business, IT is not always involved when the decisions are made, with more than one-third (38%) of IT professionals reporting that they are brought into the planning and deployment process late.
 
In addition, despite the majority (63%) of IT professionals stating confidence in their ability to respond to the needs of the business, almost a third (27%) still equated the visibility of their IT department into their company's business initiatives to “a foggy day in London.”
 
When asked to compare the visibility of IT within their organisation, 36% said "innovator" was the best description of how business leaders viewed their role. Additionally, 34% claimed "orchestrator" was the best fit, 15% chose "firefighter," 7% said "ghost," and 7% selected "fortune teller."
 
Irving Tan, vice president for the Asean region at Cisco, said the findings in this global survey provide a reality check to Malaysian IT professionals – as they assess their businesses’ needs, their roles and the effectiveness ensuring business needs are aligned to IT goals.
 
“Like their regional and global peers, IT leaders in Malaysia can become the leaders in their organisation, as these businesses grapple with network readiness to support trends like BYOD (bring your own device) and cloud,” he added.
 
Tan also said he was pleased to see the Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) leading the way with plans to transform the public sector in Malaysia through the use of IT.
 
According to him, with ICT contributing 9.8% of the nation’s GDP (gross domestic product) , and a 133% mobile penetration rate and 66% of the population connected over broadband, Malaysia has the opportunity to leverage technology to develop a “Connected Malaysia," where citizens are engaged, the economy is sustainable and the workforce has the 21st century skills necessary to realise the Digital Malaysia aspiration.
 
Additional findings from the survey include (click infographic to enlarge):

  • When asked how they know if they're doing a good job, one-quarter (26%) said "nobody calls us." Nearly another quarter (23%) chose "I sleep at home instead of the office."
  • When asked about the leading causes responsible for slowing down a new application rollout over the past year, most cited budget (34%), while 26% of respondents said it was data centre infrastructure readiness, cloud readiness and network limitations such as bandwidth. One-quarter (25%) cited "general procrastination" as the leading cause.
  • When asked to gauge their readiness for the 'Internet of Things' applications and deployments, nearly half (48%) believe it will open up new business opportunities.
  • Survey participants ranked cloud readiness (29%) as the most important network initiative to their business in the upcoming year, followed by "converging IT technology and operations technology" (28%) and "data centre consolidation/ virtualisation" (27%).
  • When asked to rank the most difficult IT initiative over the past year, moving applications to the cloud (40%) ranked first, with data centre virtualisation ranking second (38%).

"More than ever, IT has the potential to make a profound impact on the business – and opportunity to act as a strategic partner – by building a network architecture that can leverage multiple technology transitions," said Rob Soderbery, senior vice president and general manager, Cisco Enterprise Networking Group.
 
"The most successful IT professionals are those who acknowledge that fast decision-making within the enterprise is directly tied to the readiness of the network,” he added.
 
The Cisco Global IT Impact Survey polled 1,300 IT decision makers in 13 countries and was commissioned to measure the impact of IT professionals on the decisions that shape their businesses, as well as measure the relevance of the network to the business.
 
The countries that participated in the survey were: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States. To read the full research report, click here.

Related Stories:

Cloud traffic to grow sixfold by 2016: Cisco

Asean businesses starting to take innovation seriously: Survey
 

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